1

We have a great gym at work, it could easily be a for-pay health club in the real world, albeit a smaller one. I’ve never managed to work out before (made a few attempts, but it never took) and wasn’t that concerned due to lucky genetics and a sometimes-active lifestyle.

I tried running at work, but the pain in the ass of changing clothes, getting sweaty, driving home sweaty in the winter, etc. was more than I could handle.

Then when things were getting slow or I just needed a break, I was drinking too much coffee and tea and getting all wired up, then crashing. So I developed the:

Houngan’s super-duper 4 minute workout routine!

Seriously though, I just wanted to get my heartrate back up, wake up a bit, then get back to work. So I would go down to the gym, do two sets of ten of three or four different things (right now MWF is curl/tricep extension/butterfly/ab glider thingy, TTh is side lift and front lift for shoulders, pulldown for back, and a calf machine moooo.) It takes about 4 minutes doing them in circuit, then I go back upstairs. Repeat as needed, which is usually 3-5 times a day.

Most important thing: Don’t break a sweat, don’t “feel the burn,” don’t make it all the unpleasant things that most folks seem determined to make it. Just go down, do whatever you can do comfortably for 10 reps, do two sets of each, then go back upstairs feeling awake. Also, don’t anticipate results.

The short form is that I’m friggin’ huge all the sudden. After a month of this, roughly, I catch myself in the mirror getting ready for work and just laugh at myself. I know I’m not going to get all Hollywood cut doing it this way (no changes to diet of course, that would be slightly unpleasant!) but my arms, chest and shoulders are a LOT bigger.

Of course I regret not figuring this out years ago, but that’s something I’ve been working on, not sweating all the crap I should have figured out when I was in my 20s.

So if you’re a non-exerciser and are put off by people talking about hours in the gym, heart rates, supplements, etc. Just forget it. Forget all the stupid shit other people do to motivate themselves, and just go do something for 4 minutes. When you’re bored at work, go do it again. Oddly enough, it works.

H.

caveats: Yes, this isn’t the most efficient way to do it. Yes it is ignoring cardiovascular health. I get that from other activities. This is just a good way for people who don’t exercise to exercise, and that’s better than nothing. Bonus, I’m not losing any weight, but I’m gaining muscle, and I can see the fat dropping away from my face already.

2

Would be nice if I had a gym close enough to work with weights so quickly. I’ve got a 30 min workout routine I do at home which has definitely helped me get in shape but it’s amazing how your body adapts to just a few mins of strength traning a day.

3

There’s nothing I’m doing that I couldn’t do with a single set of dumbbells, FWIW. I’d have to decrease reps on some things and increase on others, but my main guide is stopping when I’m a couple of reps away from everything starting to suck. Then go do the other stuff, come back, do more until things almost suck, and leave. Like I said it’s not min/max perfect, but it works for my brain.

H.

4

Pretty cool if it works. Sadly I don’t have the facilities here to try it out. I have definitely noticed a difference since I started doing free weights a couple of months ago on top of my cardio. I’ve had a bit of a horrible chesty cough that’s stopped me doing anything at all for the last week, which is a bit frustrating as I was due to up my weight when it happened, and I doubt I’ll be able to do that for a couple more weeks now. I usually go for the standard three sets of 12 reps cycle.

I feel like going down and busting out free weights without any warm-up or warm-down could well result some pretty uncomfortable pulled muscles and joint injuries, which I’m a bit prone to. Has that not been a problem?

5

Nope, I’m specifically not pushing it, so I’m staying with a comfortable weight range. I think the big trick is that although I’m not doing big weight or pushing myself at each session, I’m doing a lot of sessions each day. If I do 4 trips in a day, I’m nicely sore the next day, which I would reckon means that things are going to grow. That’s around 80 reps of everything over the course of a day, so I’m probably getting a similar workout to a min/max schedule, it just takes more reps to get there. But I don’t mind because it doesn’t take all day or a special trip or clothing or a shower or all the other things that make me not do it.

H.

6

I know it’s suggested here a whole bunch, especially by me, but the “short time in the gym” is a part of Mark Rippetoe’s Starting Strength program – instead of 2 sets of 10, it’s 3 sets of 5 of three lifts, three days a week. And like you, that program has you start light, with the proviso that you add weight to the bar at each workout. Free weights would be a better choice than machines, and big compound movements would be a better choice than isolation exercises, but the rest of the approach is sound.

Having said all that, eventually you will have to add weight such that the lifting is difficult in order to get a training effect. New-trainee gains only go on for so long.

7

I have, my benchmark is “Do I feel like I can only do one or two more?” at the end of 10 reps. I started with 20lbs on the curl, moved to 25, and this week I’m at 30. Everything else has moved up similarly, I’m just doing it with a mindset that is appealing to me, rather than being on a schedule where “you add weight to the bar at each workout.” That puts me right off, the idea that I HAVE to do something.

Also, “new-trainee gains” suggests that I have a destination in mind. I don’t. I’m doing this just as something to get me going at work, the results are just icing on the cake. If I plateau it’s no big deal, I’ll still be in better shape and stronger than I was.

H.

8

It’s worth continuing just for that. Compound exercises take too much concentration and setup for that effect, but I’d love to be able to goof off with a few machines and then return to work with the blood pumping a little.

9

This is timely info!

Yesterday I finally followed through on my promise to myself to start exercising again, and I went downstairs to our building’s weight room, only to be confronted by a bunch of bewildering machines that I couldn’t figure out how to use. Even the treadmill required some button-pushing programming that I was unable to figure out. I mean ugh, it’s hard enough to be interested in exercising as it is, but involving weird machines and buttons that scream when you press the wrong ones? My brain pushes in its chair and goes out for a coffee. (This should not surprise me, as my own ADHD once contributed to me wiring together an entire working video-editing suite with two computers, several monitors, sound equipment, and three VCRs that all blinked “12:00” as the time because I could never bring myself to figure the boring time-setting thing out).

I settled for going back up to our condo, turned on a podcast, and walk/jogged in place with some cans for 20 minutes. Which felt pretty good, but it seems like it could be better.

I really like Houngan’s idea of breaking up work with exercise, it would definitely help with my problem of getting over-focused on details. Lately whenever I’m working on an art project, I try to force myself to take breaks every 20 minutes or so; I feel like it makes me work more efficiently and keeps me grounded and less grumpy about interruptions. Heading down to the exercise room would be a great thing to during those intervals; the change of scenery alone would help me stay focused, to say nothing of the benefits of getting my heart rate up. (I just need someone to come by and help me figure out the machines . . . in return for the generous loan of their working brain, such a person could eat as many of the home-baked chocolate cookies I always have in the bin on the counter as they might want.)

10

I work in a small office (5 people) and to get in some exercise, about 3 to 5 times a day I go to “check on the servers and stretch my legs” (I can check on the servers from my desk if I want), I walk down stairs to the server room where the temperature is a steady 66 degrees and bust out some push ups, sit ups, squats, etc… I’m thinking about hiding a couple of dumbbells down there. It does make for a nice break during the day. Definitely better than the smoke breaks my coworkers take.

11

I hardly use the machines, and like you I can’t be assed to figure out the complicated ones. The treadmills are a pain in the ass as well, since they tease you with all these options, but you have to figure out how to select them with a system resembling a mid-80s VCR.

My advice: Pick three things to do with dumbbells. Curls, bend over raise your elbow and do backwards extensions for your triceps, grab some really heavy dumbbells just to add weight and raise up on your toes to build your calves. Just do that, and only do it until you feel a bit more awake, and see if you go back.

After 6-7 weeks of this, I’m getting the positive feedback of results that are making me want to do more, but I never would have gotten here if I didn’t just go down and do some curls a few times a day.

H.

12

Which, I’ve found, are an excellent motivator/timer for this as well. When my officemate leaves to smoke, I go work out. Break time for everyone!

H.

13

Nah, not really, if you have a decent gym or just a bar setup, its pretty easy to crank out deadlifts or squats. Of course, I’m a non-machine user and only do compound exercises for the most part.

I’m in agreement with Houngan, ‘feeling the burn’ is stupid, and is counter-productive. Just do a couple of sets of 5 of compound exercises and stop. My gospel was that Dragoon Door publishing book from that russian guy (light read, very low on citing things, but it roughly follows the Starting Strength guidelines)

14

Well, I do wish I could set the Smith machine and leave it that way, I love what squats do for my general back health.

H.

15

54 minutes for the expected reply missing the point, not bad.

I can’t imagine anything more annoying than setting up a barbell to do compound exercises and paying attention to form, all during the middle of a work day while wearing my work clothes. By comparison, tooling around casually with a few dumbbells or machines on break time is like eating candy. I’m jealous, so have fun Houngan!

16

I like that. I can do that.

17

The “holy shit this worked” timeframe was about 3 weeks, btw. But mostly I just like being awake again, getting my lungs going, etc.

H.

18

How good is this for fat loss though?

Everything I’ve read shows that the body doesn’t begin to burn fat during exercise until at least 15-30 minutes into an elevated heart rate condition.

19

Probably correct, but like I said, I’m adding muscle and not gaining weight, so . . .

H.

20

Well, he’s adding muscle which will burn more calories at rest over time.